Explore Dickens presentation of education in Hard Times Essay

Explore Dickens’ presentation of education in Hard Times and comment on how this reflects a Dickensian vision of Utilitarianism Dickens’ presents The Victorian education system in ‘Hard Times’ in a fundamentally negative way, Dickens’ expresses the idea that having an imaginative aspect to our education is essential. He does this through satirising the education system and mocking the characters. Throughout the novel, it is a purpose of Dickens being satirical towards the education system. Dickens opens the novel with a satirical description of Thomas Gradgrind and his utilitarian educational methods as he teaches the room full of students â€Å"Facts alone are wanted in life† (9) Dickens satirises Gradgrind’s commitment to an education comprised only of facts as Gradgrind exaggerates that facts are the only essential thing in life. â€Å"Fancy† (14) symbolises imagination and wonder compared to facts. Dickens emphasise â€Å"Fact† more than he does with â€Å"Fancy† he does this by repeating â€Å"fact† itself, sounds more forceful. Gradgrind’s view on education is his children are to never imagine or wonder. Gradgrind rejects the concept of â€Å"fancy† or imagination; ‘fancy’ has nothing to contribute to understanding; only things that can be measured are important. Gradgrind’s disapproving rant on fancy â€Å"You don’t walk upon flowers in fact† (14) to the students underlines that fancy is bad and it should be â€Å"facts! † (14) In his satirical description of Gradgrind, Dickens’ aim is of what he experienced in the industrial England during his time when education varied vastly, according to location, gender, and class, meaning that Dickens view on Utilitarianism is shown in a satirical way, and his beliefs stood out throughout the novel, this indicates how the education system was controlled. Dickens uses characters’ names to continue his satire of the utilitarian education system prevalent in Victorian Britain. Mr Gradgrind breaks into the word â€Å"Grind† as a means to crush, signifying his method of grinding down the students’ individuality and any imagination they may have entered the school with. Mr M’Choakumchild, breaks into â€Å"me, choke, child† Dickens’ exaggerates with the name as we don’t think the new teacher is literally choking the children in his care, that this Fact-obsessed creature will only choke imagination and feelings out of them. â€Å"If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely better be he might have taught much more! † (15) This highlights that the utilitarianism system would function much better, if it were not so strung on facts. If Mr. M’Choakumchild had learnt less and been practically involved with his students more and would have taught far better. This is criticizing the way the system works. Dickens is suggesting that in the utilitarianism system, suggesting that ramming facts into students might not be the most effective way of teaching them. Not everything can be reduced to facts alone. Mr Gradgrind and Mr Bounderby are the main representations of utilitarianism and followers of the system. In Louisa’s proposed marriage to Bounderby, Dickens shows us a disastrous consequence of Gradgrind’s system that denied everything but facts. â€Å"You have been accustomed to consider every other question, simply as one of tangible Fact† (97) This illustrates that Gradgrind, who is incapable of expressing his emotions effectively toward Louisa, edges her into a marriage with Bounderby by stating various facts and statistics to her. Louisa is hesitant to communicate her feelings towards him â€Å"she returned, without any visible emotion† (96) David Lodge’s ‘How Successful Was Hard Times? ’ (1981) argues that Gradgrind’s ideology in his system is questionable, Lodge explains that it is a â€Å"primary index of what is wrong with his system† Mr Bounderby is also a character with utilitarian beliefs, doubtlessly one of the major characters that has a firm belief in the system, â€Å"you may force him to swallow boiling fat, but you shall never suppress force him to suppress the facts of his life† (23) He signifies the very essence of his ruthless principles that only has room for facts and statistics. ‘Hard Times’ outlines that a utilitarian approach to life is unsuccessful and costs those who follow their imaginations become robotic and inadequate to the system. Imagination and heart is found in the circus where Mr Bounderby and Mr Gradgrind despise â€Å"No young people have circus masters†¦ or attend circus lectures about circuses† (23) Gradgrind implies that circuses are not like a practical schoolroom. Dickens represents Sissy Jupe as an influential character of the novel who presents the value of a warm heart and embodies feelings and emotions. She is seen as a complete failure of Gradgrind’s system. However Dickens and the reader judge her as a success. The young innocent girl mocked by the teacher and presented as the â€Å"dumb† girl in the start of the novel, gradually turns out to be the most key character in the whole novel. Since the foundational significance of fact and the removal of fancy that Gradgrind’s education obliges, Sissy Jupe will never succeed. Nevertheless, in spite of the education, Sissy becomes a young woman who is able to maintain her own principles and beliefs. The contrasting descriptions of Sissy and Bitzer are shown in their appearance. For example Sissy is described as radiant and warm â€Å"dark eyed and dark haired† (11) referring to her as someone who is the face of vitality. However Bitzer is portrayed as â€Å"what little colour he ever possessed† (11) and â€Å"His cold eyes would hardly have been eyes† (11)) Demonstrating that he is cold and emotionless with no heart and all calculation. Dickens uses Bitzer to demonstrate that other students are influenced by him, showing that he is a follower of Gradgrind’s system, whereas Sissy is the foreigner to the system. The Utilitarian education system relates to the industrial town ‘Coketown’ which consists of factories and â€Å"large streets †¦ like one another †¦ people equally like one another† (27) The town is linked to a â€Å"painted face of a savage† (27) that is described as barbaric and uncultured, the children are being deprived from the â€Å"ill-smelling dye† (27) Dickens suggests the society that the children/workers are living in is unsanitary â€Å"Jail† (28) indicating that they have no escape from their problems. The utilitarian system stamps out all imagination in the pupils and prepares them perfectly for the life of drudgery. Dickens describes as their lot as ‘hands’ in Coketown’s factories. Education presented in ‘Hard Times’ is shown as satirical in Dickensian vision of Utilitarianism. This is because Dickens is able to create a fool out of the system cunningly. Furthermore it is certain that what Dickens has presented is humorous and convincing with making the utilitarian ideology seem absurd through the novel. I find David Lodge’s argument towards Dickens opinion as liberal and potent.

Stereotypes- Katha Pollitt

Stereotypes Almost from the birth kids are differentiating, girls are dressed in pink clothes and boys in blue. But they are just kids who behave almost in the same way, and their beliefs are changing with growing up. The only difference between them is their anatomy. Through genes, masculine and feminine traits are physically different. The mostly common stereotype is that girls should play with a doll, take dance lessons and be a nurse, not a doctor because it is a male profession. Why stereotypes are most important factors in our society to distinguish boys from girls?Following common stereotypes, toys are given to the children according to their gender. Consequently, boys are supposed to play with a truck and girls with a doll. Toy companies design specific toys, ones for girls and other for boys. Even aisles at markets are divided by gender. One is all in pink, with Barbie’s and kitchen sets. The second one is a mixture of colors, mostly of blue and red with trucks and gu ns. I wonder how it would look conversely, dolls in blue clothes and pink trucks. According to Katha Pollitt article, society gives children deceptive view of the world.She states, â€Å"†¦ to reject her is to say that what Barbie represents- being sexy, thin, stylish. † This quotation shows untruthful vision of the ideal women. A toy like Barbie negatively influences teen girls because this doll demonstrates an impossible body image. Fortunately kids are good observers and they know it is not true. Barbie and other toys can result in future psychological for the children because of the negative gender roles. The major reason lies only in our beliefs which we pass through generations.People lie in the stereotypes because is easier to be like each other. Sometimes being different and standing out from the crowd may have bad effects. I think it is fine and acceptable for a boy to play with a doll, and for a girl with truck. I think that boys playing with dolls can only hel p them show their emotions and feelings. Since we have the same rights, why is it seen in some way as eccentricity? There is only one major reason why people are so antisocial and sticking with the stereotypes.It is the traditional view of women as irrational, oversensitive person which destiny is to be a wife and mother. Roots of the current position and status of sexual differentiation lie in childhood and adolescence. During the process of socialization children learn how everything is functioning in the society. Also it comes to the shaping personality traits, needs and values of the system, as well as roles and patterns of behavior expected by the society. Both genders need some knowledge of other’s traditional role in the family life.Boys like girls should do housework and other stereotyped activities. There are two separate theories to distinguish boys from girls. Stereotyped toys and traditional view of role division, divide our society and leads us to think stereotyp ically. Therefore, I agree with Katha Pollitt, we should not limit boys and girl by toys according to genders. I don’t think it is not wrong for child to play with any toy or participating in any sports or activity as long as they are having good time and spending their time, and play appropriately.

What Impact Does The Media And Public Opinion Have On American Foreign Essay

What Impact Does The Media And Public Opinion Have On American Foreign Policy - Essay Example This is very important for the image of the country and it affects the way that people in America feel about themselves, their country and their government. The media have a role in providing information about what the government does, and this helps people to decide which party to vote for. Sometimes the media are not neutral, however, and this means that people can be influenced in one way or another. Newspapers often question what the government is doing, and they write about international affairs giving several different points of view. This encourages people to think about what is happening and contributes to general education. The existence of the media forces governments to explain what they are doing, and defend their actions. Another role that the media has is to limit the powers of government in situations where they could take extreme actions. Presidents worry about what people will think of them, and this is a very good thing. O’Hefferman reports that â€Å"Presid ent Nixon said that the TV reporting of the Vietnam war was â€Å"probably the single most significant factor limiting our options there.† (O’Hefferman: 1991, p. 100) In the Iraq war also, television coverage of military funerals influenced people against the war, because it made the deaths of American soldiers more real to them. The live images of bombs being dropped on Iraqi cities, and pictures of injured children and weeping relatives make the human cost of war more visible.

Border control for imigration Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Border control for imigration - Essay Example Strict border control laws are a need for today’s American society as such laws will provide protection to current workforce of America and to protect taxpayers right to access welfare. Body During the period of 1814, Francis Scott Key stated that the land of America is free and houses the bravest of all and today American society comprises of people belonging from different ethnic background (Hart 36). To a certain extend this has proven to be quite advantageous for the American society and its members, but now it is proving to hurt the already existing citizens of America. One of the reasons due to which the notion promoted by Francis Scott Key and poor border control policies has hurt the Americans is that due to increase in illegal immigration, the existing nationals of America face a higher fear of remaining unemployed. When illegal immigrants make to the American nation, they tend to take up jobs that do not require much skill set and the current citizens of US who are l ack skills to work in high paying jobs end up being jobless. According the census bureau of the nation under discussion, during the period of 2009, there were a total of more than 61k high school graduates belonging to different races and both male as well as female gender (United States Census Bureau 1). These fresh high school graduates lack skills and abilities as compared to the skills and abilities of college and bachelor level students and they are more likely to pursue careers in low paying jobs. If border control laws are not tightened then these high school students would fail to secure a careers and will fail to meet the needs of their own and their family members. Those who believe that strict border control is not essential defend their stance by stating that illegal immigration does not decrease employment opportunities for natives of US as the immigrants are not capable of speaking good English. For example: Peri states that although increase in immigrant population cr eate competition in areas of work where physical skills are required, but they cannot compete in areas where both physical and communication skills are required, thus native Americans have a competitive advantage over immigrants as they are well rehearsed with English speaking skills (Peri 165). Another issue with relaxed border control laws is that, these laws make the American taxpayers vulnerable and threatens their welfare. The United States have created a system through which it reimburses individuals for staying idle or they help those who are unemployed. This and several other benefits provided by the US for its citizens seem quite lucrative to people living in those nations where government does not contribute to the wellbeing of their citizens. In order to capitalize on such benefits, immigrants tend to move to United States from the host nations. Due to this, the tax payers who have tremendously added to the treasury of the United States for so many years end up being limi ted from their right of attaining welfare receipts as the welfare system even aids those who are not legally living in US. Those who contradict strict border laws state that the illegal immigrants add instead of eating the subsidy provided by the government. For example:

Biology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 8

Biology - Essay Example Although there are many definitions of ethics, perhaps the most universally accepted definition regards ethics as an individual or group’s ability to make choices regarding how to behave. Ethical behavior can be broken down into two categories: the choice as it effects the society around the person making the decision, and the decision as it effects the self of the individual making the choice. An individual who is making an ethical decision must think of how the behavior will affect others, in an altruistic manner. There are many different kinds of stem-cells and uses for them, and many people have different ethical perspectives on what science should and should not be able to do in terms of autonomous limits. Forms of therapeutic cloning currently involve taking cells, often stem-cells, to help the individual in terms of rehabilitation and organ transplants. People feel different ways ethically about cloning. These stem cells can be preserved in the individual’s placental cells or other cells and then can used to make replacement cells if there is a problem or disease that comes up during the individual’s life. Therefore, therapeutic cloning uses techniques that are not designed towards cloning an individual per se, but instead using cell growth to help them with possible ailments and therefore improve their quality of life substantially. This process is set to solve problematic The uses of stem cells are broad: they can be used to fight genetic diseases and treat blood disorders, and cord blood carries less risk of infection. There have been studies in which adult patients have received blood cord stem cell units that were only partially matched and grafted successfully. Also, patients with gene disorders have been given stem cell transplants to replace genetic structures, and the exactitude of this measure is heightened

Statement of Needs for a Grant Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Statement of Needs for a Grant - Essay Example Majority of the new cases of breast cancer are associated with lack of awareness and inability to obtain proper medical attention. Researchers have proposed that the only way to prevent breast cancer is to launch a prevention plan that would facilitate public education. In this light, this statement of need for a breast cancer prevention project is a relevant idea. The economic impact of breast cancer has far reaching effects. When women suffer from breast cancer, they are scheduled for a treatment program in which they visit the relevant hospitals. With the current population of working women, this will mean the absence in their respective workplaces and wastage of working days. In a year, a woman may lose over a week out of work to attend the demands of her treatment plans. In financial terms, treatment of breast cancer is expensive and has a wide range of financial implications. First, women with breast cancers have to pay for their treatment and this will reduce their incentive to invest. As such, their productivity becomes limited and their families may suffer financial loss. Those with insurance plans will have to pay for the extra expenses and this has equal consequences on the financial aspect of the family. Women covered under family insurance plans are compelled to remain within unpleasant marriages to secure their treatment. From th is point of view, starting a breast cancer prevention plan will have a lot of financial benefits of the society. The World Health Organization (2013) has asserted that it is possible for the save the lives of many people in the society if a prevention plan is launched. Over 89% of the people who have been diagnosed with cancer in the last 5 years are still alive due to effective cancer management plans. This group also estimates that over 50% of the cases of cancer can be avoided if proper awareness in created and

Ebusiness Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Ebusiness - Research Paper Example II. Competitor assessment The nearest competitor of the business is Dell Computers that also allow customization of personal computers to some extent. Dell Computers however rely too much on its own brand and suppliers that charge premium prices which is its disadvantage. This is where the business will position against Dell Computers to gain market share. The company will customize computers at a much lower cost because the parts that will make up the assembled computers will be coming from different suppliers affording customers greater latitude in terms specification and price. Other popular brands that sells online are also competitors but serves a different niche of customers who are not into customization of budget computers and such, not direct competitors. The traditional brick and mortar computer stores are also competitors only that the company can readily beat them in terms of price due to company’s lower overhead cost. III. Online marketing strategy The best way to gain market share is to differentiate from other competitors and serve a particular niche. In case of the proposed company, the product will cater to two types of customer. First, the technical users who would like to customize the performance of their computers. Second, the budget conscious users or business that are looking for ways on how to save on their computer purchase To be able to reach this target customers, the company must be able attract their attention. This can be done in several ways. First, the company can post ads in technical websites such as PC magazine, or even business websites such as The Economist where a link in such sites can land to the company’s homepage. It can also advertise with Google and even Amazon. Initially, it may suffice that the target customers has been informed of the company’s presence. But succeding marketing efforts should translate these product awareness into sales. Second, the company can sponsor popular blogs for review of certain computer parts that would lead the customers to visit the company’s website in their effort to know more about the product. If they are interested with the particular product, they can order it right there and then increasing the company’s sales. The company can also offer free online publication to those who would visit and register in the website to keep in touch with these potential customers. IV. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategy There are several methods to optimize SEO for the site that would increase traffic and eventually to an increased sales. First, key words that is best associated with the company such as customized computers, computers, pc etch that would link popular search engines such as google, yahoo, bing etch to the site due to the usage of spiders that associate certain words to certain website. V. Social media integration Social media integration is now a need for business especially for online businesses where it has to make its presence felt by the customers. It also serves as a free advertisement of the company and can be taken as an extension of its official website where customers can inquire or look for information. Facebook would be an ideal venue because of its universal appeal. Twitter can be used for short

Final A for ANTH100 D002 Spr 13 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Final A for ANTH100 D002 Spr 13 - Assignment Example As the societies changed, many misperceptions developed. People started to think that those groups of people who survive on hunting and gathering are usually weak, poor and malnourished. The research shows that these hunters and gatherers rather suffer less starvation and are better nourished than many of the agriculturalists. They also tend to face infrequent famines and obtain a greater variety of foods. Many years ago these hunters and gatherers in foraging societies lived in different geographical areas as they changed their places seasonally. They lived in places like tents or small huts and moved as soon as the supplies of food started to exhaust. These hunters and gatherers never had a relatively respectable place in the society ever since the people divided into geographical and cultural locations. As many developments took place, there were lesser locations which consisted of wild plants and animals that could be hunted and gathered, thus these groups of people left for the wild areas. For hunting and gathering the hunters require a large area of land thus in developed societies they could not form their forage societies (Nanda, 2013). 2. Larger societies include groups whose organization can be categorized as bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states. What type of organizational structure would you argue that the Hutterites fall under? Please explain your reasoning. The Hutterites are communities of a group of religious people who follow their traditions and sacred cultures and fight the modern cultures of the world outside. Almost all of these people are related to one another and they hold on to the old traditions of their ancestors. Their basic source of income is through their farming practices but their people have now started to rely on manufacturing work as surviving on farming alone is hard. The Hutterites’ colonies can be classified as tribes in the organizational structure. This is because these groups of people have a common culture, comm on tradition, common ancestors, are related to one another, common language, a political organization and a definite territory. Hutterites may not be classified as bands as they consist of no more than 100 members of the same family. Chiefdoms have positions and ranks of people which direct the highest ranked member of the society and the lowest ranked member; however there is no hierarchy of power in Hutterite colonies. States must have their own economy and a centralized government which is absent in the Hutterite colonies. Thus, these colonies can be regarded as tribes as they have all the features of a tribe; common religion, tradition, language, name and ancestors. The Hutterite colonies consist of elected members who are the ministers, trustees and directors. They are the permanent leaders of the colonies and direct the members to act accordingly to avoid conflicts. These colonies are self sufficient and do not contract outsiders for their labor or other work (Stahl, 2003). 3. What kinds of evidence have been examined to try to determine the time of origin of modern human language? What answer to this question do these suggest? The origin of the modern human language is subjected to discussions since several centuries and yet no conclusion has been made. The scholars fail to agree on a specific time or age in which the modern human language originated. The main reason why this topic has become a

Civic Center Park Essay Example for Free

Civic Center Park Essay â€Å"The noblest sort of heart is that composed of the united will of many citizens† (Robinson, p. 10), and this united will is brought forth by the City Beautiful movement. The core goals of the City Beautiful movement is to create a better city through the development of unity, civic pride, and better citizens. Civic Center Park in Denver, Colorado is a prime example of the City Beautiful movement manifested into reality. With its’ grand manner architectural style it attempts to instill a sense of unity and civic pride with in the residents of the city, which in the City Beautiful style is intended to lead to better citizens over all. Civic Center Park illustrates the core goals of the City Beautiful movement through the monuments present, the design, and the location of the park its self. In the city beautiful movement it is key to create pubic space; this idea of public—shared—space is intended to create a place where all members of the community can come together in a central location. Civic Park is a large public space that is located in the center of downtown Denver, with busy streets on all sides that do not cut through the park but strategically curve around it as to simply incorporate the park into city life; this curvilinear street design is an aspect that Camillo Sitte advocated for in urban design. Also in order to create this sense of a shared public space the park is completely encircled by public buildings, which is an aspect of Grand Manner design that Sitte greatly appreciates in ancient cities (Sitte, p. 469); it creates an â€Å"unbroken frame of public buildings† (Sitte, p. 475), which produces a â€Å"†¦cohesive effect of the square†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Sitte, p. 477). From the center of the park one can spin around and view the Denver Art Museum, the Denver Public Library, City Hall, and the newly added Colorado History Museum with out leaving that one spot. The boulevards leading to this central, open space are all broad, beautifully paved, and extensively tree lined, which is a key aspect in Grand Manner design. Much of the foot traffic in the area seemed to choose to walk these paths to their destinations instead of the main roads, despite that most destinations appeared not to be within the park its self. Facilitating a sense that this area is for the public use in more aspects than just a park. Another way in which Civic Center Park is reaching out to the public is through the program â€Å"Grow Local†. Near the center of the park is a space of land that has been cultivated into a community garden, where the food that is produced is donated to local non-profits and is cared for by volunteers in the community. The goal of the â€Å"Grow Local† foundation is to â€Å"promote local food, local community, and local economy† (Civic Center Park sign). This program that is central in the park entirely focuses on the betterment and unity of the community surrounding Civic Center Park. It establishes a connection amongst the citizens of Denver for it is completely local and is supported by the immediate community for the immediate community, which is a key concept in the City Beautiful movement. This aspect of having an open public space surrounded by civic buildings is a core City Beautiful ideology, for it turns the entire area into public domain. All that can be seen is open to the public, allowing the citizens to feel united and a part of something larger—their city. This connection helps to produce pride in the citizens, for when one feels connected they also feel a sense of responsibility. As Robinson put it in his paper, Improvement in City Life, â€Å"the happier people of the rising city beautiful will grow in love for it, in pride in it. They will be better citizens, because better instructed, more artistic, and filled with civic pride† (Robinson, p. 10). With responsibility also comes pride when the area is one that is favorable and beautiful as is intended in the grand manner design that was used in the creation of civic park. The desire of having a population that has civic pride, as is the goal in the City Beautiful movement, is that this pride will lead to better citizens. If one takes pride in there community they will then want to better their community and make it a better place to live for all. They will be inspired by their built environment to be better than before. With in Civic Center Park there are a wide variety of monuments, statues, and plaques that cover the landscape. Many of these monuments, statues, and plaques carry a common theme, the theme of patriotism. This theme of patriotism is portrayed through monuments and such that commemorate Civil War and World War II heroes, the military branches, and the beginnings of our nation. Many of these monuments, statues, and plaques are not focused solely on Denver or even Colorado, but on the nation as a whole. One plaque that is positioned on a large dark stone structure is dedicated to Sadie M. Likens, whom did great work aiding survivors of the Civil War. The plaque does not state weather or not she was a Colorado native or if she has any connection to Denver at all, it can be assumed but the connection is not concretely conveyed. Another example of this is the giant flagpole with an American flag that stands in direct line of sight of City Hall. This is not beneficial to Denver’s civic identity, for it causes â€Å"local characteristics [to] gradually disappear† (Sitte, p. 473). While this is a representation of the people’s identity and unity as a nation, it does nothing for the identity and unity of the people as members of Denver or even Colorado. A tall monument that resamples the Washington monument also stands in Civic Center Park and commemorates each branch of the United States military. This too only connects the people to their national identity and not to their identity and unity as an immediate community. While this may be viewed as advantageous, for it â€Å"attend[s] to everyone’s past† (Hayden, p. 69), it is not focused enough on the immediate community to promote the ideologies of City Beautiful. While the monument dedicated to Christopher Columbus is â€Å"socially inclusive† (Hayden, p. 70), for it celebrates the discovery and beginning of the peoples’ nation, it has no true connection to the unique background of the community. These monuments need to be more focused on Colorado and Denver’s histor and culture in order for them to better â€Å"nurture citizens public memory, to encompass shared time in the form of shred territory† (Hayden 72), as is one of the main goals of the City Beautiful Movement and the main purpose of monuments, statues, and plaques. The Statue of â€Å"Joe P. Martinez, Colorado’s first congressional medal of honor recipient of World War II† (Civic Center Park monument), in Civic Center Park is a statue that better connects the nations history with Colorado’s history; for, it commemorates a Colorado native that was in a war that effected all citizens of both the nation and Colorado. Another beneficial aspect of theses monuments is that they show a type of timeline, in that they â€Å"[help] to create, celebrate and cement this progressive narrative of natural history† (Savage, p. 2). This is also represented through the monument of the Ten Commandments that is located at one of the entrances to the park. This nation was founded on religious beliefs and therefor it has a religious beginnings and this is portrayed in the park despite the fact that our nation—for the most part—has moved away from these beginnings. Having it at the beginning of the park represents the forward movement of our nation. There were some statues, monuments, and plaques in Civic Center Park that did focus more on Colorado history, which is a closer tie to the community; however, there still did not seem to be any that were specific to Denver. Two statues that stood out as strongly representing Colorado’s collective past were the â€Å"Bronco Buster† (a statue of a cowboy on a horse) and the â€Å"On the War Trail† (a statue of a Native American on a horse). As a western state Colorado has a strong history involving Native Americans and ranching. Colorado still continues to be associated with such things in the present as well. Cowboys and Native Americans are a part of Colorado’s collective identity weather or not people have an actual, personal association with them. These statues are not just mementos of the past but representations of the present, they are not â€Å"an obsolete marker of the past but an agent of consciousness in a changing world† (Savage, p. 5). Another monument that represent Colorado’s history instead of the nations are the paintings of the â€Å"Trapper and the Prospector†, which represent early, frontier life in Colorado. These paintings represent how western life in Colorado began and how the beginnings of life in Colorado as people know it today. While all of the monuments, statues, and plaques mentioned previously help to establish unity and identity on a national and state level they lack the ability to establish them on a community and city level. The incorporation of more monuments, statues, and plaques that represent Denver’s history and identity—which Civic Center park is significantly lacking—would greatly serve the cause of building Denver’s civic identity. For, the people would feel more connected to one another and to their immediate community. This would also allow a place â€Å"in which humans can display their culture† (Sitte, p. 467), which, as Lewis Mumford believes is the most important part of a city. The culture of the people of the community cannot be displayed if the monuments present do not represent the immediate area. In Civic Center park the majority of the monuments, statues, and plaques focus on commemorating heroes, such as the Civil war monument, the World War II statue, and the Columbus monument. All of these recognized people that made a difference and were beneficial to the nation; none of them were portrayed as victims. These types of monuments stimulate consciousness, in that they cause people to view this nation as a proud one. They bring forth the notion that our nation is one of victors and heroes and therefor one should find pride in it. The monuments I found the most engaging at Civic Center park were the ones that have a greater focus on Colorado and less on the nation. I feel as though they have a more relevant place in a park in Denver thats main purpose is to promote Denver’s civic identity. In particular I enjoyed the â€Å"Trapper and the Prospector† paintings that resided inside the coliseum type structure. I feel as though they best represented Colorado’s history. They also are the most intricate monuments and evoked the most consciousness about the past and the present. Civic Center Park is full of people there for all different reasons. There are those, such as my self, that are there to observe and view the monuments (few), there are those that are there on commute to another location (many), there are those ‘hanging out’ in groups (the majority), there are those that seemed to view it as a place of residence (good portion), and then there are those that seemed to be just enjoying the park alone (few). I was a bit taken back by how few people seemed to be in Civic Park to view the monuments and enjoy the aesthetic aspects of the park. There were only a handful of people that were utilizing the benches as a place to just sit and enjoy the park and I saw only one other couple that even bothered to glance at the statues. Those in the park that were just commuting to another location tended to stay on the grand boulevard pathways and did not interact with those off of the boulevards. They did not seem to interact with any other part of the built environment other than the path in which they walked and the arches in which they passed under. I believe that City Beautiful advocates would be pleased with the fact that members of the community use the park as a part of their daily lives; however, they would probably not be too pleased with the aspect that many of the foot traffic does not interact with the monuments or the open space that is provided. I believe that they would be more pleased if some of the foot traffic stopped once in a while and enjoyed the area more and truly took it all in. If the people of the community are not taking in the sites around them then the park is not serving the function that is intended. In the City Beautiful ideology the park should instill civic pride and the monuments should educate, memorialize, and commemorate according to Kostof, and they cannot do this if the citizens ignore them all. Those that seem the most comfortable in the park were those that were ‘hanging out’ in groups that all massed around a central area. This large mass of various smaller groups positioned its self around the top of the coliseums type structure along one of the main walkways in the center of Civic Center Park. When I walked past this mass I was called out to and asked on more than one occasion, â€Å"Hey girlie, wanna smoke some reefer?† as one man put it. I politely declined the offers and was usually met with annoyed shrugs or rude comments. A majority of the people in this crowd seemed to be selling something of unsavory quality or interacting in activities of the same sort. The fact that this seems to be the dominant presence in Civic Center Park portrays that the goal for it to produce civic pride and better citizens has fallen short. I also asked some Denver locals about what connotation Civic Center Park has and all of them proceeded to inform me that it is where one goes to purchase drugs if you ever want any. From this I have derived that the park is not viewed as a place of civic pride, but viewed as a less savory part of the city. City Beautiful advocates would be extremely disturbed by what is taking place in Civic Center Park, for it is doing the opposite of its purpose and nothing, or very little, is being done to change this. Structurally, architecturally, and aesthetically Civic Center Park is every thing that a City Beautiful advocate could ever dream of; however, the actual response of the people to the park is nothing like that imagined. Aesthetically, Civic Center Park has greatly exemplified City Beautiful and Grand Manner ideologies. Civic Center Park is adjacent to the Denver Public Library, which is a building that extrudes public space to the utmost. A library is thought of as a place that is solely for public use; people can borrow from it with no pay, use its facilities for no pay, and it sponsors many public events. Its only purpose is to serve the public, and no part of it is off limits to anyone. The Denver art Museum is also adjacent to Civic Center Park, which is another building that is dedicated to the public. A museums main purpose is to educate and benefit the community in which they are a part of. The fact that all of the buildings that surround Civic Center Park are dedicated to the enhancement and benefit of the public is the exact ideology behind Grand Manner and City Beautiful design. This is indeed what civic â€Å"aesthetic progress† should look like. To add to this â€Å"civic aesthetic† progress is that the Colorado History Museum has also been place near Civic Center Park in the Civic Center Cultural complex. This addition is good in a City Beautiful context for it is another public building that is dedicated to the immediate community. It is a building that will create unity in the community, for it is focused solely on Colorado’s history and culture, which is an aspect that all the people of the community have in common with one another. â€Å"A more inclusive landscape history can also stimulate new approaches to urban design, encourage designers, artists, and writers, as well as citizens, to contribute to an urban art of creating a heightened sense of place in the city† (Hayden 73), which is what the City Beautiful planers of Civic Center park aimed to do. In many ways Civic Center park succeeded in creating a City Beautiful, Grand Manner, public space; however, it has failed to influence the public in the way that is intended. I find that the monuments and such in the park should be more locally focused in order to create the civic pride and unity that City Beautiful advocates envisioned.

Vendlers Explication of Poetry Essay Example for Free

Vendlers Explication of Poetry Essay Additional Step-by-Step Method of Thoroughly Explicating a Poem In addition to the sections, which are mentioned in the basic explication de texte, please review these divisions to further assist you in the complex work of analysis. Meaning: can you paraphrase in prose the general outline of the poem? Do not simply answer yes or no; attempt a brief paraphrase. Antecedent scenario: What has been happening before the poem begins? What has provoked the speaker? Poets make certain stanza-forms their own. Dante wrote the whole of the Divine Comedy in three-line pentameter stanzas with interlaced rhyme, and ever since, anyone writing in this form or one of its modern adaptations—from Percy Bysshe Shelley in the nineteenth century through Wallace Stevens and Seamus Heaney in the twentieth century—evokes Dante (Vendler 74). 1. How does the information contained in this statement aid us in our interpretation of poetry? What does it tell us into utterance? How has a previous equilibrium been unsettled? What is the speaker upset6 about? 2. Division into parts: How many? Where do the breaks come? 3. The climax: How do the other parts fall into place around it? 4. The other parts: What makes you divide the poem into these parts? Are there changes in person? In agency? In tense? In parts of speech? Look for any and all dynamic changes within the poem, rather than consider that the poem is a static structure. 5. Find the skeleton: What is the emotional curve on which the whole poem is strung? (It even helps to draw a shape—a crescendo, perhaps, or an hourglass-shape, or a sharp ascent followed by a steep decline—so you will know how the poem looks to you as a whole.) 6. Games with the skeleton: How is this emotional curve made new? 7. Language: What are the contexts of diction; chains of significant relation; parts of speech emphasized; tenses; and so on? 8. Tone: Can you name the pieces of the emotional curve—the changes in tone you can hear in the speakers voice as the poem goes along? 9. Agency and its speech acts: Who is the main agent in the poem, and does the main agent change as the poem progresses? See what the main speech act of the agent is, and whether that changes. Notice oddities about agency and speech acts. 10. Roads not taken: Can you imagine the poem written in a different person, or a different tense, or with the parts rearranged, or with an additional stanza, or with one stanza left out, conjecturing by such means why the poet  might have wanted these pieces in this order? 11. Genres: What are they by content, by speech act, by outer form? 12. The imagination: What has it invented that is new, striking, and memorable—in content, in genre, in analogies, in rhythm, in a speaker? Sound Units:The sound units of a poem are its syllables. The word enemy has three successive sounds, en-eh-mee. Readers are conscious of a sound effect when they hear two end-words rhyme; but poets are conscious of all the sounds in their lines, just as they are of the rhythms of a line. Word Roots: These are the pieces of words that come from words in earlier languages, often Greek, Latin, or Anglo-Saxon. Poets usually are aware of the roots of the words they use. When I consider everything that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment, That this huge stage presenteth naught but shows Whereon the stars in secret influence comment; When I perceive that men as plants increase, Cheered and checked even by the selfsame sky, . . . . then the conceit of this inconstant stay Sets you most rich in youth before my sight . . . In Sonnet 15, Shakespeare makes poetic use of words such as con-sider (from the root stars) a word he later uses in the same poem. He also expects them to notice that the word consider is composed of two parts, con- and -sider, and that the next I verb (perceive) is followed by a noun (conceit) which combines the con- of consider with the -ceive of perceive. Perhaps he also expected at least some of his readers to see how the con—of consider and conceit is repeated in inconstant (and that the word you is contained in youth). Words: The meaning of a word in a poem is determined less by its dictionary (a single word like stage can have many definitions in a comprehensive dictionary) than by the words around it. Every word in a poem enters into relation with the other words in that poem. These relations can be of several kinds: Thematic relation—as we would connect stars and sky in the quotation above. Phonemic relationâ₠¬â€as we would connect stage, stars, secret, selfsame, sky, and stay in the quotation above by their initial ss and sts. Grammatical relation: as cheered  and checked are both verbal adjectives modifying men Syntactic relation—as When I consider and When I perceive introduce dependent clauses in I both modifying the main clause Then the conceit . . . sets you. Each word exists in several constellations of relation, all of which the reader needs to notice in order to see the overlapping structures of language in the poem. Sentences: Note predicate and subject. Tenses. Track who is saying what to whom. Implication: Poets often expect you to think concretely as he speaks abstractly, since his words are to be yours. Because a poem can only suggest, not expatiate, it requires you to supply the concrete instances for each of its suggestions. Remember that implication can be present in rhythm as well as in words. The Ordering of Language: Language gives you the manner of the poem, as well as its matter. History and Regionality: In thinking about history poems, there is always a tension between the copiousness of history and the brevity of lyric. Often the generalized space of lyric gives way to a particular climate, geography, and/or scenery of a particular poem. Identity of the speaker: for the writer, the answer to this is never simple. Examine the various facets of identity in the poem and how these change and offer varying views of the world. Attitudes, Judgments, Values: You are under no obligation to like or freely accept all the remarks or attitudes you come across in art. Closely examine the stylized language to make sure that you understand the values suggested by the poem. Can you separate the persona from the author? Rhythm: The first and most elementary pleasure of poetry is its rhythm. Distinguish between the various formal types of rhythm that you find in the poem. Knowing the musical weight of every possible syllable in the language is the gift of great poets. Rhythm: Look for sounds that match. Keats thought of a kiss as a rhyme. Structure: The structures of a poem are the intellectual or logical shapes into which its thoughts are dynamically organized. Any overarching structure can have many substructures. We sometimes express this by saying that the structure of the poem enacts by way of dynamic evolution of form what the poem says by way of assertion. Images: A word is not the same thing as a picture. Words refer; images represent. Arguments: Arguments in poems are miniature imitations of real arguments. Wisdom, A New Language, Poignancy, Poems as Pleasure: no single poem offers all the pleasures of poetry. Exploring a Poem: What follows are a series of things to note when you run through a poem to see what its parts are and how they fit together. Let us use this list on a sonnet by John Keats, called On First Looking into Chapmans Homer. The anthology will tell us, in footnotes, a few things we have to know to understand the references in the poem: Keats did not know Greek, and so he first read Homers Odyssey in the Renaissance translation by George Chapman; Apollo is the Greek god of poetry; Keats believed (mistakenly) t hat it was the Spanish conquistador Cortex who, in exploring Panama (Darien), discovered the Pacific Ocean (in reality it was Balboa, but the historical error doesnt matter for the imaginative purposes of the poem). Keats tells us what it is like, even for a reader as experienced in poetry as he, to come across Homers Odyssean epic (from which he draws his opening travel imagery) for the first time: Much have I travelld in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. [allegiance] Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-browd Homer ruled as his demesne;[domain] Yet did I never breathe its pure serene;[atmosphere] Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken;[view] Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stard at the Pacific—and all his men Lookd at each other with a wild surmise— Silent, upon a peak in Darien. John Keats, On First Looking into Chapmans Homer How do we go about exploring such a poem? Let us try a series of steps. 1. Meaning: This is the usual sort of information retrieval reading that we do with any passage of prose or verse. We come up with a summary of greater or lesser length giving the import of the passage as we make sense of it. Here, we might arrive at something like The speaker says that he had  traveled through a lot of golden terrain—had read a lot of poems—and people had told him about the Homeric domain, but he had never breathed its air till he heard Chapman speak out. Then he felt like an astronomer discovering a new plant; or like the explorer who discovered the Pacific, whose men, astonished by his gaze, guessed at his discovery. This sort of meaning-paraphrase is necessary, but less useful in poetry than in prose. In many poems there is rather little in the way of plot or character or message or information in the ordinary sense, and that little can be quickly sketched (perhaps initially, especially in the case of a complex poem, by the teacher to the class). Hoping to learn things about the poem that are more interesting than simply what it says in prose, we try to construct its 1. Antecedent Scenario: What has been happening before the poem starts? What has disturbed the status quo and set the poem in motion? Here, we know what has happened: the speaker has picked up Homer (in Chapmans translation) for the first time, and has had a revelatory experience. But the antecedent scenario is not always given to us so clearly. If it is not evident right away, one moves on hopefully to 2. A Division into Structural Parts: Because small units are more easily handled than big ones, and because the process of a poem, even one as short as a sonnet, cant be addressed all at once with a single global question like Whats going on here? we divide the poem into pieces. One way of dividing this poem up is to notice that it falls, by its rhymes, into two large parts: I never knew Homer till I read Chapman (abbaabba) and Then I felt like this (cdcdcd). The first part takes up the first eight lines, connected by the two rhyme-sounds represented by –old (rhyme a) and -een (rhyme b); and the second part takes up the last six lines, connected by a new set of rhyme-sounds, represented by –ies (rhyme c) and –en (rhyme d). There are other ways, besides this 8:6 division, to divide this poem into parts, as we shall see, but let us work first within this 8:6 division-by-rhyme. In order to suggest a meaningful relation of the parts, it is useful to look at 3. The Climax: In Keatss [please note that this is the correct MLA format for possession by a person whose name ends in s] sonnet, the climax seems to come when Cortex stares at the Pacific—the high point of the poem. What is special about his experience? Why does it replace the image of the  astronomer discovering a new planet? In lyric poems, the various parts tend to cluster around a moment of special significance—which its attendant parts lead up to, lead away from, help to clarify, and so on. The climax usually manifests itself by such things as greater intensity of tone, as especially significant metaphor, a change in rhythm, or a change in person. Having located the climax, one can now move back to 4. The Other Parts: About each part, it is useful to ask how it differs from the other parts. What is distinctive in it by contrast to the other members of the poem? Does something shift gears? Does the tense change? Does the predominant grammatical form change? (For example, does the poem stop emphasizing nouns and start emphasizing participles?) Is a new person addressed? Have we left a general overlook for certain particulars? Here, we notice that the first four lines talk in general about states, kingdoms, and islands. The next four lines talk about one special wide expanse, the one ruled by Homer. The next part says, I felt like an astronomer discovering a new planet. And the last part produces anew comparison: I felt like an explorer discovering a new ocean, accompanied by his companions. Some questions immediately arise: Why doesnt the poem end after the poet says, I felt as though I discovered a new planet? Why does he feel he needs a second comparison? And why, in the second comparison, does he need not only a single discoverer comparable to the astronomer, but a discoverer accompanied by a group of companions (all his men)? Once these four parts (general realms; Homers expanse; solo astronomer/ planet; Cortez and men / Pacific Ocean) have been isolated, one can move on to the game called 5. Find the Skeleton: What is the dynamic curve of emotion on which the whole poem is arranged? I am much traveled, and have visited [presumably by ship] many islands; however, I had never visited the Homer-expanse till I heard Chapman; then I breathed the air of the Homer-expanse, and it was like finding—like finding what? The first stab at comparison (like finding a new planet) isnt quite right—you cant walk on a planet and explore it and get to know it the way you get to know islands and states. Well, what would be a better comparison? And the speaker realizes that whereas other poets seem feudal lords of a given piece of earth—a state, a kingdom, an  island—Homer is different not just in degree but in kind. He is, all by himself, an ocean. A new ocean, unlike a planet, is something on one s own plane that one can actually explore; yet it is something so big that it must contain many new islands and realms within it. When we understand this, we can identify the curve of astonishment in the poem when the Homer-expanse (a carefully chosen word that doesnt give away too much turns out to be not just another piece of land, and not some faraway uninhabitable body in the sky, but a whole unexplorable ocean, hitherto unguessed at. The tone has changed from one of ripe experience (Much have I travelled) to one of ignorance (the speaker has never breathed the air of the vast Homeric expanse, though others had, and had told him about it), to the revelation of the wild surmise—we have found not just another bounded terrain, but an unsuspected ocean! This curve of emotion, rising from an almost complacent sense of experience to an astonished recognition, is the emotional skeleton of the poem. We can then ask about 6. Games the Poet Plays with the Skeleton: If OFLCH by its content, is a then/now poem (I used not to know Homer / Now I do), what is the event bridging the then and the now? It is reading Homer in Chapmans translation. Reading is not an event in the usual sense: most then/now poems (like A slumber did my spirit seal) are about some more tangible event (a death, an absence, a catastrophe). Keats plays a game, then, with the then/now poem in making its fulcrum an experience of reading. By saying that reading too is an Event, Keats makes the then/now poem new. If this is a riddle-poem (and it is: What is Homer-land like?), how is the riddle prepared? It is prepared by a series of alternatives: I have seen realms, states, kingdoms, islands. Some expanse is ruled by Homer, but I have not seen it yet. Will it be a realm? A state? A kingdom? Another island? The first answer to the riddle is, none of the above; Homer land is a new planet! But that is the wrong answer (one cant travel to and explore a new planet, and the speaker is exploring Homer), so the poem tries again to answer the riddle, and this time does it correctly: None of the above; Homer-expanse is a new ocean! The poet has played a game with our sense of the poem as a riddle by answering not in the category we anticipated from his former travels but in an unexpected one, thus making the riddle-poem new. Keats plays  another game with the ignorance/discovery skeleton by making his poem a hero-poem. He makes the reward at the end of the emotional curve—the discovery of the new ocean—not a solitary experience but a communal one. We normally think of reading as an uneventful private act. Why did Keats make it heroic? Furthermore, why did he show the heroic discovery being made not by a single explorer but by a company of explorers? Cortex is not alone on the Isthmus of Panama, but is accompanied by all his men / Look[ing] at each other with a wild surmise. When one discovers the Homeric expanse one reads alone, but one becomes thereby a member of a company of people who have discovered Homer—those people who had oft . . . told the speaker about Homer. A feat like Homers writing the Odyssey is as heroic as the exploits of Achilles: mastery of such an intellectual discovery is itself a presence of Cortezs men, is collective, not private. Keats thought of himself as a poet among poets: a reader of Homer among readers of Homer, an explorer among explorers. And in this way he made the hero-poem both newly intellectual and newly communal and democratic. One can go on to ask about 8.Language:We have been looking at language all along, but now we can do it more consciously. How many sentences does the poem have? 2. Where does the break between sentences come? After line 4. This gives us, a new division into parts: not the 8:L6 of the then/now structure, but the 4:10 of the knowledge/discovery structure, which locates for us the moment i n which traveled complacency turns to longing for Homeric acquaintance. Poems often have several overlapping internal structures. It is one of the signs of a complex poem that its rhymes may be dividing the poem one way, its theme another way, its action from inception through climax another way, its grammar another way, its sentences yet another way. Each of these divisions has something to tell us about the emotional dynamic of the poem. What parts of speech predominate in the poem? In Keatss sonnet, the chain of nouns of space—realms, states, kingdoms, islands, expanse, demesne, planet, Pacific—stands out as one unifying link. What other words, regardless of whether they are different parts of speech, make a chain of significant relation? Your might notice how words of seeing and watching—seen, watcher, ken, eagle eyes, stared, looked at—connect the parts of the poem as do the nouns of space. What contexts are expressed in the diction?We notice traveling sailing, exploring, astronomical observation, feudal loyalty, and  so on. Is the diction modern or ancient? Keats uses archaic words like realms of gold, goodly, bards, fealty, demesne, pure serene, and ken which help us sense how long Homer has been alive in our culture. A close look at language always leads to 7. Tone: The calm beginning, in the voice of ripe experience (much have I travelled) mounts to the excitement of the wild surmise, which then suddenly is confirmed by the breathless silent of the last line, and by the image of the peak corresponding to this heightened moment. Reading a poem aloud as if it were your won utterance makes you able to distinguish the various tones of voice it exhibits, and to name them. At this point, we can turn to 10. Agency and Speech Acts: Who has agency in this poem? We notice that the main verbs are all governed by the I who speaks the poem: I have traveled . . . and seen . . . [and] have been . . . [and] had been told. . . .yet never did I breathe . . .I heard . . . Then felt I. But we notice that in the subordinate clauses a great many other subagencies are present. Bards hold island, Homer rules an expanse, Chapman speaks out, the new planet swims into ken, Cortez stares at the Pacific, and his men look with wold surmise at each other. It is by the interpenetration of the rather colorless main verbs denoting the sedentary activity of reading and the other more public or active actions of the agents, that Keats draws his new acquaintance with the Odyssey into large realms of cultural activity. The speech act of this poem is a single long narration of the speaker’s more remote and recent pasts. The unusual thing about the speech act (narration) and agency (single main agent) is that they stop so soon: the last narrative verb by the agent is then felt I in line 9. After that, the attention of the poem never comes back to the speaker, but instead expands out to the most exalting sorts of cultural discovery—that of an astronomer, that of explorers. 11. Roads Not Taken: What are the roads not taken in the poem? The sonnet might have ended with the comparison of the self to an astronomer. Would this have been satisfactory? Or the expanse ruled over by homer might have been shown as a new continent rather than as a new ocean. Would this have been equally revealing? Or the poem might have been written in the third person instead of the first person: Many have travelled in the realms of gold And they have goodly states and kingdoms seen Round many western islands have they been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Is this as dramatic as the first person? Or the poem might have begun with the reading of Chapmans Homer, instead of leading up to it: I once heard Chapman speak out loud and bold; He told me of a wide expanse unseen, Better than other states and realms of gold That deep-browd Homer ruled as his demesne. Then felt I like stout Cortez on his peak, When with his eagle eyes he saw the sea. . . . We can see how these examples show us just how dynamic Keatss version is. With the clear idea of the function of each piece of the poem within the whole, and of the dynamic curve of emotion governing the order in which the pieces appear, we can then pass on to 12. Genre, Form, and Rhythm: What is the content genre of the poem? A dramatic change between then and now; a poem about reading; a poem about a hero; a poem about collective experience. What is the speech act genre of the poem? A narration in the first person of a significant event marking one life-period off from another, and an asking-a-riddle: What is reading Homer like? What is the formal genre of the poem? A sonnet, using the usual five-beat rising-rhythm line found in sonnets, rhyming abbaabba cdcdcd. It can be compared to other sonnets rhyming the same way. About form, we always need to ask how it has been made vivid. We can then move on to the last issue which is always 13. The Imagination: What has the poets imaginati on invented that is striking? Memorable? Or beautiful? We can tell, from the metaphors of sailing, that before writing his poem Keats had been reading Homers Odyssey, and had been thinking about what Odysseus had discovered as he sailed from realm to realm, from island to island. Wanting to describe his own first reading of Homer, Keats imaginatively borrows from the very book he has been reading, using the image of travel, saying that reading poetry in general is like voyaging from Shakespeare-land to Milton-kingdom to Spenser-state, but that reading Homer is not like finding just another piece of land to visit: it like finding a new planet, or, even better, a whole unexpected new ocean to sail in. Keats imagined these large  analogies—sailing, astronomical observation, discovering an ocean—for the act of reading in general, and for reading Homer in particular; they enliven the sonnet. What makes the poem touching is the imagined change from the complacency of the well-traveled speaker to the astonishment of the discovery of Homer, and the poets realization that in reading Homer he had joined a company of others who have also discovered the Homeric ocean, sharing his wild surmise. It is characteristic of Keats to see poetry as a collective act: he said in a letter, I think I shall be among the English poets after my death, not I think I shall be famous after my death. But the imagination is not invested in themes and images alone. The imagination of a poet has to extend to the rhythm of the poem as well. What the imagination has invented here that is rhythmically memorable is the change from the steady first ten lines—because even the astronomer doesnt have to do anything but look through his telescope—to the strenuous broken rhythms of the heroic last four lines with their four sharply differentiated parts: Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes he stared at the Pacific— And all his men lookd at each other with a wild surmise— Silent, Upon a peak in Darien. The intent, piercing stare of stout Cortez: the amazed mutual conjecture of his men; the sudden, short, transfixed silence of the whole group; the summit of foreign experience on which the action takes place—each of these four facts is given its own rhythmically irregular phrase, so different from the undisturbed and measured pentameter narration in Then felt I like some watcher of the skies / When a new planet swims into his ken. A poem needs imaginative rhythms as well as imaginative transformation. You will, of course, read most poems without investigating them in this detailed way for their inner processes. But as soon as you want to know how a poem works, as well as what it says, and why it is poignant or compelling, you will find yourself beginning to study it, using methods like the ones sketched here. Soon, it becomes almost second nature for you to notice sentences, tense-changes, speech acts, tonal variants, changes of agency, rhythm, rhymes, and other ingredients of internal and external structure. Poems are very rewarding things to study as  well as to read, to learn by heart as well as to study. They keep you company in life. To give the poem its due, although we often understand its message, the reason for our response is the arrangement of the message on many intersecting planes into a striking and moving form. We need to be able to see it as an arranged message. Vendler, Helen. Poems, Poets, Poetry: An Introduction and Anthology. Boston: Bedford, 1997 http://www2.sjsu.edu/faculty/patten/vendler.html